


Nebula - Supernova

by TheArtificialDane, veronicasanders



Series: Galactica [5]
Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 12:59:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16682074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheArtificialDane/pseuds/TheArtificialDane, https://archiveofourown.org/users/veronicasanders/pseuds/veronicasanders
Summary: Del Rio Family backstory. Adore is 15 and in high school, still living at home. Bianca is 32 and due to a promotion at Vogue magazine, starting to achieve financial success.Written by Veronica Sanders and I.





	Nebula - Supernova

Adore looked at the two black band t-shirts in her hand, trying to choose between them. After a few moments, she shrugged and tossed them both into her suitcase.

Her phone began to ring on the nightstand, and she jumped over the mess on the floor to answer it. “B! Hey, bitch, how are you?”

“Good, how are you? I heard you actually got some decent grades this year, congratulations!”

“Yeah, well, I hate school, but I know that college is the easiest way out of this shithole, so I try…when are you coming home? I miss your big dumb face.”

Bianca laughed. “Likewise. And…I’m not sure. Maybe Thanksgiving? I hope. Or Christmas. Depends on work, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah…”

“So what are you up to? Anything fun planned this summer?”

“I mean, I don’t know how fun it will be, but Eddy and I are going to Tia Maria and Uncle Pete’s for a few weeks.”

A beat. “Did you say Maria and Pete?”

“Yeah. I know they’re kind of boring, but they have the pool. OMIGOD did I tell you that our air conditioner broke? It’s been a literal hellhole here.”

“Okay.” Bianca’s voice sounded faint and whispery.

“…What?”

“What?”

“Why do you sound weird?”

Bianca sighed. “I just…be careful there, okay?”

“What does that mean?”

“I just mean…like…don’t walk around by yourself at night, and…don’t go into the pool house where Uncle Pete’s office is. And don’t–”

“What’s wrong with the pool house? Are you trying to tell me that it’s…” Adore lowered her voice dramatically, “HAUNTED?!” She giggled to herself.

“Yeah, Adore. It’s haunted. Fuck you.”

Adore sighed, exasperated. “Well what the fuck ARE you talking about? And can you please be more cryptic because this is a very fun guessing game.”

“I can’t tell you. Just trust me. Stick with Eddy. Lock your door at night. And…and…” Bianca’s voice sounded shaky.

“Bianca, what the actual fuck? Lock my door? Are they performing satanic rituals in the living room at night or something?”

Bianca laughed bitterly. “That would be an improvement.”

“Well, I don’t know what you’re–”

“Pete is not a good guy, Adore! Just stay away from him, okay? Just…please.”

Adore could feel the blood draining from her face. “Bianca. I…need you to be real specific here…talk to me like I’m as dumb as you always claim.”

“I can’t. Please. I gotta go. I’m sorry–”

“BIANCA DEL RIO, DO NOT HANG UP THIS PHONE!”

There was a long pause. Adore could hear Bianca breathing. Finally, she said “…I’m sorry.”

Adore had never heard her sister sound like that before. She sounded…broken. “B…please tell me what you’re talking about. I won’t tell anyone else. I swear.”

A long moment passed. “He’s just…he’s an asshole. A disgusting, horrible asshole. Okay?”

“Did he hurt you, B?”

Another long pause. “It was a long time ago.”

Adore took a deep breath. “What happened?”

“I…I went there when I was your age. It was…he…I’m sorry, Adore, I can’t. I can’t talk about it. I’m sorry.” And now she really was crying.

Adore couldn’t remember ever hearing her sister cry. Her whole body went numb. “Okay. That’s okay. We don’t have to.”

“Thank you.” Bianca’s voice sounded soft and hoarse.

“I’m sorry for pushing you.”

“It’s alright,” Bianca said. “I really…do have to go now.”

“Okay…B?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

“I love you, baby girl.”

***

She couldn’t even look at him. His wispy, balding hair, and steely blue eyes. He owned a company that sold appliances, and that salesman smile…it now creeped Adore out in such a major way that the dinner table became her least favorite spot. Almost as bad as the sick feeling she got every time she looked at the pool house. The little light from his desk lamp in the window at night.

Tia Maria was very sweet, very pretty. Her mom’s younger sister. But Adore found herself blaming her, which on the one hand made her feel awful (she’s a victim too!) but on the other hand, fueled her anger (she must know…how could she not know?).

One night, against Bianca’s stern warnings, Adore found herself in the kitchen after everyone else went to bed. She’d been too angry to eat her dinner and now her stomach growled with hunger. She rummaged around in the pantry, looking for something, preferably cheesy and crunchy. She was getting a bag of Cheetos down from the shelf when she jumped at a voice behind her.

“Feeling a little peckish?”

Adore whirled around, dropping the bag. “What…what are you doing here?”

“Same thing you are, darlin’, looking for a little midnight snack.” Pete licked his lips, and Adore thought she might throw up.

“Don’t. Don’t come forward.”

“What are you so skittish about, Adore? I’m not gonna hurt you.”

Adore closed her eyes, bile rising in her throat. “Stop! Bianca told me what you did to her.”

“Oh, did she now?”

“Y-yeah…”

“Well, let me tell you something about your lying whore of a sister, Adore. She wasn’t sweet like you. She was a manipulative little cunt who used me and blackmailed me. Did she tell you that? How she fucking bilked me out of hundreds of thousands of dollars? And besides that…” Pete stepped forward, putting his hand on Adore’s arm, gripping it tightly. “That little slut loved every second of it.”

Adore wrenched her arm away, backed up a few steps before turning and running, throwing open the front door, racing barefoot down the stone driveway and into the street. She was almost two blocks away when she finally stopped, chest heaving, trying to catch her breath, vomiting onto the sidewalk. She swallowed hard, unable to stop thinking about her sister. Her beautiful, strong sister. The one person in her family who, despite their age difference, and the fact that they’d barely ever lived in the same house, always looked out for her. Always cared what she had to say. Always encouraged her and anything she tried to do. Her sister still had drawings on her fridge that Adore made for her when she was 5. And the thought of her being hurt, being taken advantage of, filled Adore with a kind of blind rage that she didn’t know she had. She had to do something. She HAD to.

***

“Did anyone ever tell you that you should be a model?” Bianca breathed, brushing her lips against the plush, pouty mouth of the girl she’d just picked up, minutes before last call. (What was her name? Sara? Sam? Sally?)

“I am a model!” Sara (Bianca decided to go with Sara) exclaimed.

“Wow, then it’s lucky I’m–” Bianca stopped, her heart sinking a little as her phone began to ring in her purse. It was almost 4 am. A call at this time meant 1 of 2 things. Either there was some kind of catastrophic work emergency, or someone in her family died. Either way, this was gonna be a shitty call. She looked at the screen, saw Adore’s name, and picked up immediately, every hair on her body standing up straight. “Baby girl, are you okay?!”

“I burned it down,” came the eerie, whispery voice.

“You…what?”

“The pool house. I burned…burned it down.” Adore started to cry. “The cops are on the way, fire department is already…here. They’re gonna lock me up, B, but I’m not sorry!”

Bianca’s head pounded. She took a breath. “Adore, listen to me very carefully. Are you listening?” Bianca was sprinting out the door, desperate to get out of the noisy, crowded club. Whats-her-name long forgotten.

“Yes.”

Bianca found the exit and hurried into the alley, towards the subway stop. “Do not. Say anything. To ANYONE. Not police, not firefighters, not Tia Maria or even Eddy. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you right now?”

“On the sidewalk.”

“Don’t move. Don’t run, but don’t talk. Please. I’m coming. I’m gonna come and I will take care of you but you have to…please, baby, I’m fucking begging you. You have to keep your mouth shut. / _Please/_.”

“Okay.”

“I’m gonna hang up now and book a flight to Texas, and I will see you very, very soon. Okay? You’re gonna be okay. I promise. Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, good. I love you, baby girl.” Bianca hung up, heart racing with fear. With shaky fingers, she found Victoria’s number and called her.

The travel agent answered the phone with a long, hacking smoker’s cough. “Fuck me…”

“Victoria?”

“It’s 4 am. Someone better be dead.”

“My…my sister…” Bianca choked back tears.

“Oh god, honey!”

“No, she’s not…she’s not dead, but she’s in trouble, and she’s only 15, and I need to get to Galveston, Texas first thing in the morning. I need a car, and I–”

“Okay, take a deep breath darlin’, I got you…so you need to fly into Houston. Can you get to La Guardia for a 7 am flight?”

“La Guardia?” Bianca sniffled. “That’s trash.”

Victoria laughed. “Yes, ma’am, it is. I’ll book it now, it’s the cheapest and earliest. I’m just gonna put it on Bunny’s account, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And then you call me once you land, I’ll have a rental car for you. Do you need a hotel?”

“Um…I guess…I guess so.”

“You know what, just get to the airport. I’ll email you the flight details.”

“Thanks, Victoria.”

***

Bianca pulled into her aunt and uncle’s driveway, and took a deep breath. She hadn’t been back there for almost fifteen years. Ever since her last conversation with good old Uncle Pete.

*

_“Bianca! Well well, what a surprise. What brings you all the way out here?”_

_Bianca stood in the doorway, face blank, eyes hard, voice calm. “I got into Columbia.”_

_“That’s…that’s great! Congratulations. Always knew you were a smart girl.”_

_“Yeah, but, the only thing is…it’s really expensive. I got a partial scholarship, but not enough.”_

_“Aw, don’t worry about that. You could take out loans.”_

_“I could. But…I’m not going to.”_

_Pete frowned, brow furrowing in confusion. “What are you–”_

_Bianca held up a hand, taking a recorder out of her pocket. She pressed play._

“God, Bianca, you have no idea how sexy you are, on your knees like this…I just wish we had more time. I would fuck you so hard…make you scream…like last summer…remember?…Fuck, yes, take it deeper, choke on it, oh god–”

_Bianca shut off the recording. “There’s more, but you get the idea.”_

_“When the fuck did you record that, you little bitch?” He tried to snatch the recorder away and Bianca laughed._

_“It’s cute that you think you can dare ask me a single question right now.” She shoved his arm away. “Or that this is my only copy. Sit back down.”_

_Seething with rage, Pete sat down, muttering to himself._

_“So…Columbia. I was wondering how I could afford it, and then I remembered. I have a rich uncle. And he’s just so supportive of my education. Since he doesn’t have any kids of his own. It’s really, really sweet…he put aside this whole trust fund for me. It was very generous.”_

_“That was almost 2 years ago, you can’t prove–”_

_“Funny thing about the statute of limitations - 10 years for rape. And no limitation if the victim is a minor.”_

_“You can’t prove anything!”_

_“Oh, but you see, I don’t need to. You don’t need to get convicted for your life, and your business, to be destroyed…isn’t that right, Uncle Pete?”_

_Pete’s eyes shifted as he thought through the situation._

_“So…you haven’t asked how much.”_

_Pete narrowed his eyes at her. “How much?”_

_“Seven hundred thousand.”_

_“What!?”_

_“Well, Uncle Pete…I mean it would be weird if you just paid for my school and ignored all my siblings. You know? Suspicious, even. This way the trust will earn interest so that it’s replenished by the time Eddy and Adore are ready for school.”_

_“There’s no way in hell I’m going to–what are you doing?”_

_Bianca had one hand on the cordless phone on his desk. “Oh, I was just gonna make a quick phone call to the local cops.”_

_“FINE! Fine, I’ll give you the fucking money. Goddamn it.”_

_Bianca walked over to him, leaned down and said right into his face in a low voice. “Thanks, Uncle Pete. And if you ever. Lay a hand. On ANYONE else - my sisters, my cousins, some girl down the block…ANYONE…the deal is off, and I will come back, and I will put a fucking bullet between your eyes. Understood?”_

_Pete swallowed._

_Bianca straightened up, smiled icily, and stalked out of the office, down the stairs, out the gate at the side of the house. She reached her car and crumbled into the driver’s seat, shaking like a leaf._

*

Bianca took one more breath. She walked up to the door, of the house to which she swore to she’d never return, thinking only of Adore, and just as she was about to knock, the door flew open, and her 20-year-old brother, Eddy, crashed into her arms. “B! Oh thank god, I don’t know what’s happening. They took her last night, B, the cops, and–”

Tia Maria came flying over to them, wringing her hands. “Bianca, I told them, I told them that I’m sure it was an accident, but–did you talk to your mother yet?”

“Yeah. She’s on her way. Is Uncle Pete home?”

“He’s in the den. Since his office is…well. You know.”

Bianca nodded. She kissed her aunt on the cheek and walked towards the den, swallowing hard.

“Well, well, well. The prodigal niece returns. I hear you’ve done very well for yourself.”

Bianca swallowed down her fear and went right to him on the sofa, glaring down at him. “Here’s what’s gonna happen–”

“You think you can tell me what to–”

“HERE’S WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN.” Bianca’s voice was hard and unwavering. Pete’s macho facade began to fade a little. He crossed his arms and looked up at her, gesturing for her to continue. “We’re going to go to the police station. You’re going to tell them that you knew about some faulty wiring in the pool house, and you forgot to call the electrician, so you were really worried about getting in trouble for endangering the life of your sweet, wonderful little niece. And so you, like the spineless asshole you are, let her take the blame last night, and she was probably too shaken up to defend herself. But now you are just wracked with guilt and want to take responsibility, and you’re so sorry. I know remorse is not really your thing, so you’re gonna have to work real hard to make it believable.”

“Why the fuck would I do that? My insurance isn’t gonna cover it if I say that–”

“God, what is it with you and money? You really need to get your shit together, Pete. Cause the thing is, I still have those tapes. And you know who loves to put rapists in jail? Every-fucking-body.”

“You haven’t changed a bit. Fucking cunt.”

“Yeah, ditto. So do we have a deal, or do I have to finish what Adore did and burn your entire LIFE to the ground?”

“You know, I didn’t touch a hair on her goddamn head.”

“Ohhh, that’s really nice. I’m so glad you’re no longer raping your teenage relatives. You want a medal?”

“Goddammit.”

“Don’t be mad, Uncle Pete. Look at it this way. The cost of a pool house is pretty cheap to get us out of your life for good. And that’s a promise. For good.”

***

Bianca paced nervously around the police station, breathing deeply, trying not to let the panic she felt take ahold of her. Trying not to think about how scared and alone Adore must feel at this very moment. Avoiding eye contact with her equally terrified, totally confused brother.

And then, the miracle. Bianca saw her face rounding the corner behind a female officer. Her eyes filled with tears of relief, and suddenly Adore’s arms were around her, face buried in her chest, sobbing all over her.

“Shhh, it’s okay. I’ve got you. I got you, baby.” Bianca rocked her sister, smoothing down her messy hair, resting her cheek on top of her head. Eddy came up behind them, wrapping his arms around both of his sisters, sighing with happiness.

***

Bianca had finally gotten Adore to sleep when her mother arrived, a ball of anxiety and panic, wailing and pulling at her hair. Bianca dragged her to the hotel bar and tried to explain, but without the real details, it was difficult.

“Maria said they found gasoline on her hands! How did they let her out? Bianca, I don’t understand! Why would she do this?! Does she need to go away?”

“No…mom…” Bianca closed her eyes. This was worse than the cops.

“Is this a gay thing?”

“Yeah. It’s a gay thing. I burned down a bunch of buildings, you didn’t know?”

“Bianca, don’t you talk back to me right now! I’m just…this is crazy! Is she having some kind of breakdown? I don’t know what to do with her!”

“Maybe…you don’t have to.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean…I’m doing really well in New York. And I was thinking, that maybe, she could finish high school there. With me. If…if she wants.”

“You wanna take my baby away?!”

“No, I don’t,” Bianca sighed. “She’ll still be your DAUGHTER, I just…I think maybe she’d be happier there.”

“Maybe she would. But what about me?”

“Oh, mom…” Bianca held out her arms and her mother hugged her tightly. “We can visit all the time. Okay? I just…I’m asking you to consider it.”

“Okay, I’ll…I’ll talk to your father and…” she sighed. Already knew how this was gonna go. “You’ll take good care of her?”

“I’d do anything for her. You know that.”

***

It was a long drive back to New Orleans. When they arrived, Adore immediately went to her room, avoiding the family that had gathered, and shut the door. Bianca lingered downstairs, said hi to her sisters and her baby nephew.

After a hushed conversation with her parents in the kitchen, Bianca went upstairs and knocked on Adore’s bedroom door. “Baby?”

Adore pulled off her headphones and opened the door, silently walking back to her bed.

“How are you doing?”

“Peachy. The whole family thinks I’m a psychotic pyromaniac, don’t they?”

“Yeah, pretty much. I’m sorry.”

“Well…whatever. I don’t regret it. So they can go fuck themselves.” Adore’s big blue eyes betrayed her though, soft and misty, a direct contrast to her cynical words.

Bianca sat down on her bed. “I was talking to mom, and…you know that new apartment I told you about?”

Adore nodded, lip quivering.

“Well, it’s pretty great. I have a guest room.”

Adore wiped away a tear with the back of her hand, sniffling. “That’s cool.”

“Adore, I don’t think you understand what that means. I have a whole extra bedroom. In New York City. I’m a rich person now.”

Adore laughed. “Good for you.”

“Yeah, and…and there’s a great high school like two blocks away. It’s a performing arts school.”

“Sounds awesome.”

“Yeah, it is. I’m trying to…Adore…you have three more years of high school. And mom…she doesn’t understand. And I can’t…I’m so sorry, but I can’t tell her. I just…I can’t. It would destroy her, and ruin her relationship with her sister, and it’s…it’s too late now anyway.” Bianca wiped the tears from her eyes, took a shaky breath. “So…I thought maybe, you would want to move in with me?”

Adore’s eyes were huge by this point, brimming over with fresh tears. “Are you fucking with me?”

“Yeah, I’m fucking with you. It just seems like a good time for that.” Bianca shook her head.

“I just…I mean…B…” Adore’s voice broke as tears spilled down her cheeks.

“You don’t have to. You can stay here if you want, I just thought…I’d give you the option.”

Adore stood up from her bed and walked to where Bianca stood, throwing her arms around her big sister’s neck. “You know something, B? I’d burn down 100 buildings for you.”

“Please don’t,” Bianca laughed, hugging her tightly.


End file.
